NYC & Wall Street Recruiting: CC gives too narrow a picture

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I know that Wall Street has a pretty extensive list of schools (maybe 60 schools or more) from which it hires undergraduate students on a fairly regular basis. This is a very important point as some on CC give the impression that you must attend a certain type of school in order to make it to the Street. That is just not the case. </p>

<p>When I refer to Wall Street, I am speaking of the whole picture-Investment Banking, Investment Management, Fixed Income, Equities, Alternative Investments, Prime Brokerage, etc. Way too much focus on CC is placed only on the I-banking slots at a handful of large brokerage firms. Wall Street is much, much more than this and there are many non-traditional firms now playing important roles, eg, private equity, hedge funds, etc, (however, many of these firms hire mostly laterally or from the top 20 MBA programs).</p>

<p>Wall Street wants smart people with drive and with an ability to work with others (although if you are smart and talented enough, Wall Street will put up with a lot). You can get to the Street from almost anywhere (including from many schools not listed below) so don't be discouraged if you didn't get into HYPSM or attend one of the top undergraduate business schools. With the right blend of preparation, moxie, and intelligence, you can get a good job on the Street. The message to be taken away should be that there is opportunity from almost anywhere and you don't need to attend HYPSM in order to reach your dreams. </p>

<p>Having said that, there is something of a pecking order on Wall Street about how certain schools are viewed. This order is MOSTLY determined by the perceived intellectual quality of the student bodies at various schools. However, some schools will outperform their grouping, eg, due to alumni positioning around the Street who can pave the way (this is a powerful factor) or some will underperform, eg, due to their school's graduates having relatively lower interest in working on the Street (Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins). </p>

<p>So, for use by high schoolers looking to get a sense of how many schools appeal to Wall Street, I thought it might be helpful to create some general groups that reflect how Wall Street perceives the intellectual strength of students coming from various schools. </p>

<p>The following is my opinion of how Wall Street views these undergraduate institutions as determined by the intellectual quality of the students. I'm sure others will have different views. Schools in each group are listed in alphabetic order.</p>

<p>The Premier Schools with the Premier Students: (The Top Ten)
Amherst, Cal Tech, U Chicago, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Swarthmore, Williams, Yale</p>

<p>The Next Tier of Schools with Excellent Students (Ranks 10-20)
Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Middlebury, Northwestern, Penn, Rice, WashU, Wellesley</p>

<p>The Next Tier of Schools with Generally Excellent Students (Ranks 21-30)
Bowdoin, Cornell, Davidson, Emory, Georgetown, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Tufts, Vanderbilt</p>

<p>The Next Tier of Schools with Some Excellent Students (Ranks 31-50)
Boston College, Brandeis, BYU, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Colgate, UCLA, Lehigh, NYU, U Michigan, U North Carolina, U Rochester, USC, U Texas, Vassar, U Virginia, W&L, Wesleyan, Wake Forest, William & Mary</p>

<p>The Next Tier of Schools with a Number of Excellent Students (Ranks 41-60)
Bates, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Colby, U Florida, Fordham, George Washington, Georgia Tech, U Georgia, Hamilton, Indiana U, Lafayette, Mount Holyoke, Penn State, U Richmond, Smith, Syracuse, Trinity, Tulane, U Wisconsin, Yeshiva</p>

<p>Some schools have been deliberately left out (Pomona, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Grinnell) because I am just not familiar enough with them on Wall Street. But the other groups look about right to me and reflect how Wall Street employers view the average intellectual level of the applicants. But most important is that there are many, many schools (public and private) not listed here that have some very talented students who can get to the Street. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but merely to inform and serve as a starting point.</p>

2

<p>Hawkette, which section of the country do you live?</p>

<p>I have never heard that Berkeley has just some excellent students before I came to CC.</p>

<p>I do like the fact that you are trying to broaden the list of schools.</p>

3

<p>he's one of those folks with ivy envy and thinks public schools aren't as good since he graduated from one. I can't blame him, this is what your average everyday folks think. Its' fairly obvious that all you are doing is taking the USNEWS rankings and placing the elite public universities below where they do should be.</p>

4

<p>I think Colgate should DEF be higher, in the next tier (it's as prestigious as tufts, emory, vanderbilt, and davidson and I would say def. more so on the street).</p>

5

<p>To be honest, I don't think anyone views the skills ranked in any way. It only really matters where you went to school for alumni connections. Otherwise, it doens't much matter where you went to school as long as you can make it through those cutthroat interviews. In other words, it's more about what you made of your education than where you got it.</p>

6

<p>I'm done with this thread, but before I go I thought I would add this list from menloparkmom who got this list from a different poster. I know how much the OP likes SAT scores.</p>

<p>"I thought it might be interesting to see where the most students are going who score over 1500 on the SATs. The following is a list sorted by my estimate of how many full-time undergraduates have SAT scores over 1500 based on US News 2007. This is the raw number of students with over 1500 SATs, not the percent.</p>

<h1>with SAT over 1500/1600</h1>

<p>UC Berkeley 3668
Harvard 3333
U Penn 3110
Cornell 2805
UCLA 2791
U Texas Austin 2516
Yale 2513
Stanford 2435
Duke 2282
Columbia 2198
U Illinois Champaign-Urbana 2013
MIT 2007
Brown 1998
Northwestern 1998
USC 1977
Princeton 1953
NYU 1891
Washington U St Louis 1882
U Virginia 1723
U Michigan Ann Arbor 1645
U Florida 1639
U Notre Dame 1505
U Chicago 1501
Dartmouth 1486
Georgetown 1478
Georgia Tech 1470
UC San Diego 1349
Johns Hopkins 1278
Emory 1148
Tufts 1115
Rice 1030
Vanderbilt 1026
Carnegie Mellon 981
Boston College 893
UNC Chapel Hill 892
U Washington 844
UC Davis 721
College of William and Mary 711
UC Santa Barbara 708
Penn State University Park 687
Caltech 567
U Wisconsin Madison 561
RPI 543
Tulane 535
Case Western 514
UC Irvine 470
U Rochester 414
Brandeis 399
Lehigh 291
Wake Forest 278"</p>

7

<p>dstark, that list is obviously misleading as Berkeley has such a large undergrad student body (21,000+). In comparison, Harvard has only 6,700 undergraduates. </p>

<p>If Berkeley has 3000+ undergrads w/ 1500+ SATs, then Berkeley also has 18,000+ undergrads w/ SATs under 1500.</p>

<p>With a 25th-75th percentile SAT Range of 1220-1450, Berkeley has considerably lower scores than all the other schools at the top of your list (with an exception for UTA for the same reason).</p>

8

<p>It's not misleading. Berkeley has more top students than any other school.
That's all the number implies. It also has more lower scores than some of the other schools.</p>

<p>But it has the most top scorers. </p>

<p>All right. One more list. This list is from one of the top private high schools in the bay area. Most selective schools, gpa above 3.9 usually needed to get in ....</p>

<p>Amherst Bowdoin Brown Cal Tech Claremont McKenna Columbia</p>

<br>


<br>

9

<p>I don't think this is how Wall Street is looking at these schools. I've seen the list of the 25 schools my Wall Street employer focusses on and it bears no resemblance to the ranking above. Some of the schools listed in the top tiers historically send very few grads to Wall Street; some of the schools listed in lower tiers historically send a large number of grads to Wall Street.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that alumni at Wall Street employers play a huge role in the hiring process. And your undergraduate grades are extremely important.</p>

10

<p>jrpar. how's Cornell for Wall Street recruiting? I wouldn't be an Applied Econ. and Management major, but I would be a general Econ. major, but taking many high level Mathematics courses as electives and several Applied Econ. and Management courses.</p>

11

<p>Putting Caltech, Swarthmore, and Amherst in the first tier shows how clueless this poster is about Wall Street feeder institutions. If you want to work in the areas he specified, here are the schools to go to:</p>

<p>Harvard (best by far, regardless of major)
Yale
U Pennsylvania (Wharton, but CAS/Engineering place very well as well)
Princeton (selective eating clubs w/ required bicker a big plus)
Columbia
MIT (if not for the tech side would be much lower)
NYU Stern (great feeder and great for internships b/c of location)
Cornell (lots of hirees but very competitive due to size)
Dartmouth
Brown
Duke
Williams (arguably the best LAC for placing consistently well on Wall Street)
UVA (McIntire does very well, but other schools/programs place well also)
U Michigan (the undergraduate B school does very well; engineering does ok)
Georgetown (the business school does the best but SFS and CAS do alright as well - CAS a little better than SFS)
NYU CAS
Howard U (draws lots of recruiters for the B school) - also Morehouse/Spelman
Stanford (possible, but very few are hired in banking; for consulting, Stanford is decent for NYC but I hesitated about even putting this school on the list)
Wellesley (last but not least; still an acceptable option but waning)</p>

<p>In terms of the most selective, largest, most prestigious, and highest-paying firms on Wall Street, these are where the students are coming from each year. For the lower end positions (like operations), they actually focus mostly on lower end local schools like CUNY, Yeshiva, St. John's U, Fordham but the most desired spots go to the above alumni.</p>

<p>If you really want to know where these firms hire from, contact the recruiters themselves and talk to them. They will tell you. Or, go to websites for top places like Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bain & Co., McKinsey, Mercer, Merill Lynch, etc. and look at the actual employees and their recruitment schedule. The on-campus recruiting process for the above schools is a time consuming, daunting, but fairly consistent process. The top places continue to go to the above schools. If you want a high paying job for a college graduate, you should be looking at the above places because if don't go to one of them, your chances are drastically reduced without huge connections (though not impossible). This is the TRUTH. Now, after getting a top MBA and working for about 4 years (which is close to the average today at top business schools where as 2 years used to be standard and for our parents generation many people actually went directly into MBA programs), you definitely have another shot given that you have a great resume and have accomplished some significant things in business already + a high GMAT (GPA is not as important as for other professional schools like law and medical schools). Also, being a college varsity athlete is a huge plus as well. These places (especially banking) love athletes, runners...people that are in great shape. Last, these places tend to have a lot of international hires, and some of the biggest banks (like UBS, Credit Suisse, etc.) are not U.S. companies. So, if you want to go to school abroad, particularly in the U.K., places like Oxbridge are excellent (LSE is pretty good as well).</p>

<p>You should really thank me for this info...</p>

12

<p>Dstark,</p>

<p>You probably made my point more effectively than I did. You listed 50 schools, nearly all of which have at least 300 students or more who scored at 1500 or higher on their SATs. All but 5 had more than 500 students at this level and 38 had 1000 or more students who scored at this level. To me, that is VERY impressive breadth of educational excellence across the country and reinforces my oft-made point that you don’t need to go to the most highly ranked schools to find highly talented students. </p>

<p>My main point is that one can get to Wall Street from many schools. You most certainly do need to go to a certain type of school (Ivy, top private, top public) in order to get there. High school (and some college) students with little perspective need to understand that getting into or choosing one of these schools is not the be all, end all. Clearly some schools will give you a bit of an advantage in terms of the alumni networks they can provide, but if you choose to go elsewhere or if you don’t get in, one needs to realize that you can still succeed from a great many places. </p>

<p>Nonetheless, there is a perception of intellectual horsepower at different schools. Re my groupings and how they relate to the public universities, it is not that UC Berkeley and other publics don’t have some very high quality students. They most certainly do. They, however, are parts of a larger environment and my groupings reflect a perception of the quality of the entire student body at a school. </p>

<p>Using dstark’s numbers, please consider the following adjustments and you quickly see a pattern between my groupings and the quality of the various student bodies. I continue to believe that these groupings are a pretty good reflection of how Wall Street views the intellectual quality of various schools. </p>

<p>THE FIRST GROUP
Caltech 567 (enrollment of 913, % over 1500 = 62%)
Harvard 3333 (enrollment of 6649, % over 1500 = 50%)
MIT 2007 (enrollment of 4066, % over 1500 = 49%)
Yale 2513 (enrollment of 5409, % over 1500 = 47%)
Princeton 1953 (enrollment of 4906, % over 1500 = 40%)
Stanford 2435 (enrollment of 6576, % over 1500 = 37%)
U Chicago 1501 (enrollment of 4671, % over 1500 = 32%)</p>

<p>THE SECOND GROUP<br>
Dartmouth 1486 (enrollment of 4110, % over 1500 = 36%)
Duke 2282 (enrollment of 6534, % over 1500 = 35%)
U Penn 3110 (enrollment of 9841, % over 1500 = 32%)
Rice 1030 (enrollment of 3185, % over 1500 = 32%)
Brown 1998 (enrollment of 6176, % over 1500 = 32%)
Columbia 2198 (enrollment of 7319, % over 1500 = 30%)
Northwestern 1998 (enrollment of 8023, % over 1500 = 25%)
Washington U St Louis 1882 (enrollment of 7466, 25%)</p>

<p>THE THIRD GROUP
Johns Hopkins 1278 (enrollment of 5678, % over 1500 = 23%)
Tufts 1115 (enrollment of 5078, % over 1500 = 22%)
Georgetown 1478 (enrollment of 6719, % over 1500 = 22%)
Cornell 2805 (enrollment of 13,515, % over 1500 = 21%)
Emory 1148 (enrollment of 6510, % over 1500 = 18%)
U Notre Dame 1505 (enrollment of 8275, % over 1500 = 18%)
Vanderbilt 1026 (enrollment of 6400, % over 1500 = 16%)</p>

<p>THE FOURTH GROUP
Carnegie Mellon 981 (enrollment of 5623, % over 1500 = 17%)
UC Berkeley 3668 (enrollment of 23,482, % over 1500 = 16%)
College of William and Mary 711 (enrollment of 5594, % over 1500 = 13%)
Brandeis 399 (enrollment of 3267, % over 1500 = 12%)
Case Western 514 (enrollment of 3949, % over 1500 = 13%)
U Virginia 1723 (enrollment of 14213, % over 1500 = 12%)
Georgia Tech 1470 (enrollment of 11,841, % over 1500 = 12%)
USC 1977 (enrollment of 16,897, % over 1500 = 12%)
UCLA 2791 (enrollment of 24,811, % over 1500 = 11%)
RPI 543 (enrollment of 4951, % over 1500 = 11%)
Boston College 893 (enrollment of 9019, % over 1500 = 10%)
U Rochester 414 (enrollment of 4696, % over 1500 = 9%)
NYU 1891 (enrollment of 20,566, % over 1500 = 9%)
U Texas Austin 2516 (enrollment of 36,878, % over 1500 = 7%)
Wake Forest 278 (enrollment of 4263, % over 1500 = 7%)
Lehigh 291 (enrollment of 4679, % over 1500 = 6%)
U Michigan Ann Arbor 1645 (enrollment of 25,467, % over 1500 = 6%)
UNC Chapel Hill 892 (enrollment of 16,764, % over 1500 = 5%)</p>

<p>THE FIFTH GROUP
U Illinois Champaign-Urbana 2013 (enrollment of 30,909, % over 1500= 7%)
UC San Diego 1349 (enrollment of 20,679, % over 1500 = 7%)
Tulane 535 (enrollment of 7500 (est), % over 1500 = 7%)
U Florida 1639 (enrollment of 34,612, % over 1500 = 5%)
UC Santa Barbara 708 (enrollment of 18,077, % over 1500 = 4%)
U Washington 844 (enrollment of 27,488, % over 1500 = 3%)
UC Davis 721 (enrollment of 22,735, % over 1500 = 3%)
Penn State University Park 687 (enrollment of 34,637, % over 1500 = 2%)
U Wisconsin Madison 561 (enrollment of 30,106, % over 1500 = 2%)
UC Irvine 470 (enrollment of 19,930, % over 1500 = 2%)</p>

<p>davida1,
My comments were not about feeder schools. It was about how Wall Street sees the intellectual strength of various schools. I agree that Cal Tech, Swarthmore and, to a lesser degree, Amherst, are not as active in placement on the Street. </p>

<p>You listed 20 schools. I have 16 of those in my first three groups. Exceptions are in the fourth group-NYU (I agree that location gives it a leg up), UVA and U Michigan (I agree that their business graduates do well), and I forgot to include Howard (they are clearly an important target school for minority hiring). I think we agree far more than we disagree.</p>

13

<p>davida1's list is excellent (I'd take off Brown though). I don't think Wall Street is dwelling much if at all on the intellectual strengths of these schools. Firms which have had good experiences hiring from schools continue to hire from the same schools year after year. And senior management make sure their alma maters are on the list of target schools. </p>

<p>Noway, Cornell is well represented on Wall Street. Do well in whatever you chose to major in.</p>

14

<p>jrpar, one more question: are Chicago Econ majors well-represented or am I just better off at Cornell?</p>

15

<p>hawkette, those are the best schools in the country, but that's not how Wall Street views these schools. Call a spade a spade. There is a pecking order, and the most lucrative jobs are open to the graduates of 15 or so target schools. CalTech, WashU, Rice, Davidson, Vandy. et al. are not among them, for instance. Whether that's fair or not is another story. Those other schools are, then, represented as you go down the food chain. Also, on the Street, in general, some regional schools such as Colgate, Fordham, Binghamton, Baruch have decent representations. The Wall Street is not the only place in the world one can find gainful employment, of course. But you should not mislead high schoolers.</p>

16

<p>What Hawkette did was list schools based on average or percentage of SAT scores and then proved his list was correct by using average or percentage of SAT scores. :)</p>

17

<p>nefer, what does your list look like?</p>

<p>I'm going to guess. The 8 Ivys, MIT, Duke, Williams, Amherst, NYU, and now I get stuck.</p>

<p>Stanford and ?</p>

18

<p>nowayjose-Chicago econ. is the best econ. in America.</p>

19

<p>There are a lot of markets in Chicago. Maybe that is where the Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan people end up.</p>

20

<p>Nefer,
I am not trying to list the top feeder schools. As davida1’s list illustrates (and I agree with much of it), Wall Street has a very strong bias to schools in the Northeast-17 or his 20 schools are in the NE with Stanford, Duke and U Virginia being the exceptions. Actually, it might be more true to say that the NE schools themselves are most accustomed to sending many students to Wall Street. I think davida1’s list is a bit limited, but I agree that the schools he lists serve as strong, active “feeders.” However, while I concede that students interviewing on Wall Street from CalTech, WashU, Rice, Davidson, Vandy, et al are less common, they are also very well received when they come there. That was my point. Their schools’ reputations are strong (in many cases much stronger than some of the “feeder” schools) and the students are generally well regarded on Wall Street or anywhere for that matter. I completely agree with your views on the reputations of Colgate, Fordham, Binghampton, Baruch, etc although I would say in the case of Colgate, it is much better than “decent.” </p>

<p>As for misleading high schoolers, I am trying to do the opposite so please help me understand what you object to. I believe that students from a large number of colleges can find good jobs on Wall Street. It takes work and maybe a little creativity and initiative on the part of the student, but it definitely can be done. Many CC posters would have you believe otherwise-that you must go to this private school (Ivy or otherwise) or graduate from such-and-such public school’s business program. I’m saying that this might help somewhat in terms of positioning, but it is not the absolute key in choosing a college. At the end of the interview process, the Wall Street firm is hiring the person, not the school. </p>

<p>Yes, the top (mostly NE) schools have an advantage and sometimes a large one, such as for HYPSW, but Wall Street does want a broad cross section of students. It is in their interest to hire widely and if they can find excellent students from non-traditional or less frequently seen sources, those students will not automatically be turned away. My point is that if you are a top student from a school like Indiana U or Brigham Young or W&L or William & Mary and you want to go to Wall Street, you can compete with kids coming out of the Ivies and other top “feeder” schools. You can get a job on the Street and frankly, some employers actually prefer these students because they are frequently just as smart and don’t bring a lot of attitude to the workplace with them. </p>

<p>Dstark,
I know how it looks but my first list was created completely out of my head and based on my own knowledge of the schools and the Street. Perhaps I have too much of a SAT bias in my thinking, but I don’t think my rank ordering was/is too far out of whack as regards perceptions of the intellectual strength of entire student bodies. Your numbers only reinforced my conclusions. Frankly, your list, when adjusted for student population size, is much more credible than my own back-of-the-napkin ordering. However, I was pretty stunned when the results were almost identical to my original list.</p>